Medicine

Category archives for Medicine

Razib Khan has a good response to my post yesterday about biopunks, including this: I obviously support this movement and its intents (I’ve met a few of the people who are prominent in it). But we need to keep perspective here. This will probably be analogous to the free or open source software movement; the…

Via USA Today, we learn about a study showing that people who meditate frequently behave in a more rational manner than non-meditators, and they do so because different parts of their brain take charge of certain kinds of decisions. The study was based around a common test of rational behavior called the Ultimatum Game. Two…

For some perspective on yesterday’s story about MRSA and other bugs found on BART train seats, let’s turn to Good Magazine, which interviews microbiologist Pat Fidopiastis about a separate study, funded by Clorox, which found bacteria on shopping cart handles. Fidopiastis writes: none of this means much unless you can show me a significant risk…

Michael Egnor is still upset. Earlier, he penned an inaccurate, misleading, and … well … egnorant defense of his views on abortion, responding to my critique of his claim that personhood is easy to define. His earlier reply repeatedly and incorrectly attempted to associate the content of this blog with my employer. As the sidebar…

I know Christopher Maloney is a quack because this is how quacks act. PZ Myers wrote a blog post way back when pointing out that Maloney is a quack, a naturopathic “doctor” in Maine. He urged parents to skip vaccinating their kids, and to have them drink berry juice and take garlic pills instead. That…

That’s the full video from my panel at Netroots Nation this summer. Mark Sumner (DailyKos’s DevilsTower, and the author most recently of The Evolution of Everything), Greg Dworkin (DailyKos’s DemfromCT), and Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway (co-authors of the excellent and important Merchants of Doubt.), joined me to talk about threats to science in today’s…

Calitics has the story about that whooping cough epidemic: With whooping cough now at epidemic levels, it’s becoming clear that one of the primary culprits is the idiotic trend over the last 10 years of parents, mostly affluent whites, opting out of vaccination out of a baseless fear that the vaccines are unsafe.

Via ObWi, we learn that the Pope took time out of his busy schedule to extend the AIDS crisis in Africa: While medical workers advocate the use of condoms to help prevent the spread of AIDS, the Church insists on fidelity within heterosexual marriage, chastity and abstinence. “The problem cannot be overcome by distributing condoms.…

The Washington Post reports that the Red Cross has fallen on hard times: The American Red Cross said yesterday that it has depleted its national disaster relief fund and is taking out loans to pay for shelters, food and other relief services across seven Midwestern states battered by floods. The Bush economy and high gas…

An LA Times report on a study of the HPV vaccine summarizes it by saying “Overall, the new results indicate that the vaccine is not living up to its initial prospects.” But is that true? Here’s what the reporter said mere paragraphs earlier about the findings: Among women who had not previously been exposed to…

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About TfK

Joshua Rosenau spends his days defending the teaching of evolution at the National Center for Science Education. He is formerly a doctoral candidate at the University of Kansas, in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. When not battling creationists or modeling species ranges, he writes about developments in progressive politics and the sciences.

The opinions expressed here are his own, do not reflect the official position of NCSE. Indeed, older posts may no longer reflect his own official position.